


Oh, and the Water

by vetiverite



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit RPF
Genre: Aidan's Mam is the Best Mam, Aidan's an Otter Oh YES HE IS, Bullying, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Character Study, Developing Friendships, Family Feels, Just So We're Clear, Light Angst, Mild Aquaphilia Because Otters, Māori Mythology & Folklore, Other, Otter!Aidan, Otter!Dean, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 03:45:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17378957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vetiverite/pseuds/vetiverite
Summary: He was born this way.  His family accepts him as he is.  He's got to make his way in a world that tolerates many masks, but only a single skin.  It would be so much easier if there was just ONE other like him in the world...





	Oh, and the Water

 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/146567788@N07/33001511688/in/dateposted-public/)

 

>   
>  _But of all the beasts whose lives I have tried to tell there is one that stands forth, the Chevalier Bayard of the wilds, without fear and without reproach. That is the otter, the joyful, keen and fearless otter; mild and loving to his own kind, and gentle with his neighbour of the stream; full of play and gladness in his life, full of courage in his stress; ideal in his home, steadfast in death; the noblest little soul that ever went four-footed through the woods._
> 
> \--Ernest Thompson Seton

  
**I. THE DOBHARCHÚ**

_You were what you were, and you were all ours from the start— no substitutes, no swaps._

So says Mam, and she should know.

Changelings take the place of pilfered babies, but he slips straight into waiting hands. _HE’S a live one,_ hoots the midwife, striving to keep a firm grip on this wriggly tadpole. Mam fumbles him as well, and he volleys comically between the two women until one of them (which?) shrieks _Hold STILL ya little guppy_ and then he’s caught for good.

_____________

At the christening, they place wagers on whether he’ll cry. Behind the high-backed pews, billfolds and wallets discreetly await his signal. Losers grumble; winners buy the first round. Circle of life.

But he doesn’t cry from the fear of God; he cries because the water is _right there,_ a font filled to the brim and just beneath him. It’s where he _belongs_. Why do they keep him from it? Why do they tease him with a few stingy drops instead of the whole sacrament?

_____________

Seven months old. Mam’s bathing him in the kitchen sink, hurrying to be done before the _Glenroe_ theme song starts. She looks away for one second, _one_. When she turns back, he’s smiling at her. Her baby.

Or something like.

 _I thought it was a trick of the eye,_ she tells him years later.

It _is_ a trick. His best one.

_____________

By his first birthday, she’s filling the bathtub and bringing along a paperback to keep herself occupied.

Tall glass of iced tea by her side, she turns pages as the egg timer ticks and he swims continuous, blissful figure-eights. He’s tireless, but when the bell sounds, Mam plucks her little otter pup out of the water and onto the bath mat. She throws a nice fluffy towel over him, then whisks it away like a stage magician. _Voilà_ — a human baby again!

 _Mine either way,_ she says.

But otter pups and human babies grow, and soon the tub’s too small for figure-eights. Now he’s stuck being human, and he cries just like any other child when the soap gets in his eyes.

_____________

Restlessness settles in like a constant mild fever. It simmers until Mam comes up with a plan, if not a cure.

Corkagh Park duck pond, bright and early. Neither mother nor child are certain the change will happen in public, so exposed. But Aidan pipes up with an idea: _Mam, the towel._

He lies flat on his back in the dewy grass; she spreads the towel over him and waits.

A commotion appears to be happening under the turquoise-blue terrycloth, but Mam resists the urge to raise even one corner. _Surely he’s just playing under there,_ she thinks. _Will it even work in reverse?_ Then one towel hem tents up and a little dark head pokes out, sleek and flat and glossy, with tiny pointed ears set low and a pugnacious little muzzle bristling with whiskers.

 _Ah, look at you,_ Mam coos. _Come on, darlin._ And out he lollops, and sure a mother would recognize her own lovely boy anywhere, even if he is covered with fur.

_____________

Mam does plenty of finger-drumming and fretting over the plan, which seems increasingly chancy in her eyes. _All those tykes in strollers watching,_ she says— and seeing as how her boy sits in a stroller as well, she readily admits to the irony. The groundskeepers, too, worry her. Springing out of the bushes at the least commotion from the ducks…

 _Rotate,_ says Da. _Never the same park twice in a row._

So from Corkagh Park they move on to Tymon and Sean Walsh Memorial, where Mam goes rubbery with anxiety every time a trail-walker hoves into view. _One of these days, they’ll catch us, I know it,_ she broods. _It could happen anytime._

But then school starts, and winter follows, and water freezes, and the point becomes moot.

_____________

Six years old. Now he has to be human every single hour, no exceptions. Who could have guessed a person could miss their own self, right from within their own skin? And the other kids— they see through you, straight to the bone, all your differences laid bare. How far into him can they see?

He shadows his brother; tries to do as he does. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. And when his frustration threatens to spill over, Mam takes him out of school. She buckles him in and then they drive around, just the two of them, looking for water.

The kiddie parks are no good now. Lots of new families; too many people. If he were a selkie, maybe the ocean… but saltwater stings his eyes and sand rubs him raw. Public swimming pools are faucet-fed, as spiritless and stale as water left overnight in a cup. Rivers and streams carry all sorts of rubbish nowadays; sure he’d get caught on a rusty old bedspring and end up with lockjaw. So that’s out.

What’s needed is water fresh and clean— always a little bigger, deeper, and further away.

Onward to reservoirs and fisheries. Leixlip. Bohernabreena. The water gives off such promising tingles, but the fisheries distress Aidan; all that lovely vitality pent up. And the Salmon Leap provides Mam with a real puzzler. The dam wiped it out forty years ago, yet here’s her boy wailing as though an old friend had died.

 _W-what happened t-to the waterfall?_ he sobs. _Where’d it GO, Mam?_

 _It’s on your face, darlin,_ she replies, dabbing away his tears.

_____________

Glendalough changes everything.

They leave just after suppertime on a Friday night. Da and Colin wave goodbye at the gate, and then it’s just Mam and Aidan, singing along with the radio. That year, for some reason, “Light My Fire” has muscled its way back into the charts; the voice of a man twenty years dead barrels out of the crappy car speakers sounding fresh as last week.

They stay overnight in a room that smells of cigarette smoke and peach air freshener. For some reason, the pattern on the bedspread – orange-sherbet-colored flowers with leaves of gravy-brown – keeps them both in stitches. _Ugly as sin,_ Mam says. _No. There’s_ never _been a sin so ugly._

Then away early in the morning, mile after mile of up and down, passing endless rocks and trees under a flat white sky to end up here, standing beside the largest body of water he’s ever seen. All the others, mere puddles.

 _Stay close to shore,_ Mam says, folding the clothes he’s shucked. They’re hiding in the deep greenery, getting ready. _People come close, you swim away quick._ She takes him by the chin and gives him The Glare. _And don’t go near the anglers; they’ll catch you with their hooks._

He hears her, but dimly, for the lake is talking. It’s been talking ever since they parked the car. He steps to the edge, that liminal place where water laps stone, and listens hard. The air’s cool on his naked skin; he feels a tiny raindrop, just one, but it makes his heart leap. _Any minute now; any minute…_

And then comes the change, and with it, relief. To be what he is, finally; to do what he was created to do.

_____________

The first approaches him near a stony outcrop where he sits grooming his fur after the first long dip.

You’re _a big one,_ it remarks, very much surprised. _Where’d you come from?_

 _Cherrywood Grove, Dublin Twenty-two,_ he replies. That’s what his parents instructed him to tell the _gardaí_ if ever he were to be lost on the street.

 _Well, are you going to follow?_ the stranger demands.

He does, and it’s brilliant.

There’s four all together. None of them have names – the concept puzzles them – but they’re really, really nice to him. They show him everything— the moss-lined shelter where they sleep, the places where they drop spraint, the cove where they catch frogs, all the best places to play. They act as though he’s one of them, even though he knows he’s really not.

For hours they rabbit up and down the rocky strand and turn somersaults in the lake-bottom tangle. They chase fish. And catch them. And _eat_ them. Aidan eats one, as well – a really very little one – but the flavor, the texture, the crunch of tiny delicate bones between his teeth is intensely satisfying.

He wants more of it. And gets more of it.

_____________

(Fifteen years later, trembling in the back row of a pitch-black cinema, he’ll watch Sméagol tear into a still-living catfish, squelching its firm, sweet, glistening flesh through his teeth. The girl next to him will squeal in disgust, and he won’t be able to decide which gnaws at him more— her revulsion, or his hunger.)

_____________

When it’s time to go, sadness drifts through him. Something tells him he won’t be seeing his friends again.

 _I wish I could stay,_ he tells them.

 _We know you can’t,_ says the oldest one. _You’re a_ dobharchú; _you have another shape. We stay the same. We stay_ here. _You could come back some time,_ it adds plaintively. _Is Cherrywood Grove, Dublin Twenty-two far away?_

 _I think it is,_ says Aidan.

Back on the bank, Mam scrubs him only half-dry before rushing him into his clothes. _The sun’s getting low, and we’ve a long way to drive,_ she says.

 _What’s a_ dobharchú, _Mam?_

This pulls her up short. She trains her eyes upon the sky, a gorgeous pinkish-yellow backdrop to the black silhouettes of the trees. _Well..._ you _are, I suppose,_ she replies. _Did you have a nice time, love?_

 _Oh, yes!_ And in a rush he tells her about his friends and the cove and the somersaults and the fish, of which he ended up eating not just the little one, but plenty more.

 _I told you not to go near the anglers,_ she admonishes.

 _But they were taking the best fish,_ he retorts. _And the fish belong to US._

Meaning the otters.

_____________

Selkies possess a skin to take on and off, but _dobharchúnna_ have only their own will to change— or keep from changing. Aidan can’t hide his nature; he can only control it, which costs him. Half his attention is eaten up by the effort; his teachers say he lacks focus, and the other kids— well, they _can_ be cruel, can’t they?

Fair play to him, though; he doesn’t run. He gains a reputation for moving fast and punching hard. Forgetting himself in the thick of it once, he even bites a boy and is sent home in disgrace. He’s not sorry. They’ll never know how much he was holding back.

Mam, as usual, finds a remedy: she enrolls him in dance classes. _To channel his spare energy,_ she thinks. _And improve his posture._ Long, slender, seemingly boneless, his body curls and unfurls with the flow— grand for the water, but if you’re going to live on dry land, you need a backbone.

He grows one.

Soon he needs no looking-after. He develops his own circle, and maybe it’s not Glendalough, but he tries not to think about that anymore. It’s far in the past, and there’s no sense missing what you’ll never have again.

_____________

Age twelve. A summer Saturday on the banks of the pond near the Clondalkin community football pitches.

Long ago he made a pact with the swans: if they left him alone to fish, he wouldn’t harry them or their cygnets. These swans seem to remember him, but they can’t be the same ones, surely? In one of those flashes of insight Mam calls Growing Up, he realizes that yesteryears’ cygnets have all grown and birthed cygnets of their own. News of him has been passed down, mother to child: _Never mind him, he’s harmless._

Not so harmless are the two older boys who surprise him there. There are plenty of toughs in Clondalkin, the type who don’t think much of other boys who fancy-dance in bow ties. You can’t tell from looking, though, so he stays as calm as he can.

Thing is, he’s just come back to human form but not yet put his clothes back on, so it’s quite the eyeful they’re getting this morning. The tall one gawps open-mouthed, but his shorter, stockier, red-faced companion is more forward.

 _Jaysus FUCK, ya mentaller!_ he bellows.

Aidan says nothing. He doesn’t have to. He’s turned on The Glare.

Years from now, all you’ll have to do is watch five minutes of his on-screen work to understand its impact. Dante Gabriel, Mitchell, Ross: all of them will do some half-boiled version of it; the full one’d make the camera burst into flames. By then, he’ll have learnt to wield it like Mam does— wisely, like a superpower. But in his hands, at this moment, The Glare is a gun with no safety, a grenade conspicuously missing its pin.

The stocky one with the mouth on him turns whey-faced and bolts.

The tall boy stays.

 _Motherogod, the FACE on you, mate!_ he howls later. _Near soiled me cacks._

He near does it again when Aidan shows him _why_ he came to the pond so early on a summer's morning.

His name is Niall, and he’s too curious to run. He never tattles on Aidan, not a syllable, and from that day they’re seen together nearly every afternoon. Niall’s the one who takes Aidan to see _The Secret of Roan Inish_ and whispers _Spittin’ image of ya_ when little black-curled, feral Jamie appears on screen. For Aidan's benefit, he filches books from his grandmother’s library, gold-stamped volumes with marbled endpapers and tissue-thin pages printed in miniscule type. Folklore, all folklore.

It’s enticing to think that somewhere in these books, Aidan will find an entire chapter all about his kind. It’s enticing to think that he _has a kind_ — that he’s not the only one of what he is.

 _Maybe you’re the Dobharchú with a capital D,_ Niall suggests. _The King Otter, the Bossman._

Thinking of the heat he got only this morning for leaving wet laundry in the washer, Aidan rolls his eyes.

_____________

 _Myth: the_ dobharchú _does not sleep._

He loves sleep; he’d do it all day long if he could. He dreams of Glendalough and tennis practice, Glendalough and falling very fast, Glendalough and girls, Glendalough. In that order.

 _Myth: the_ dobharchú _hungers for human flesh._

He hungers for Hunky Dorys and lemonade, champ with absolute loads of butter, Sunday morning fry-ups, sloppy hamburgers, porter cake at Christmas, and fresh-caught fish devoured raw and bloody on the sly. Growing boys need their protein.

 _Myth: the_ dobharchú _is white-furred with black ears and a black cross on its back._

As an otter, he’s brown and shiny like other otters, if three times as large. As a boy, his black hair, ivory skin, and dark moss-colored eyes get him called _Tinker_ and _Dago_ , while the truth – if people knew it - would only get him called _Liar_.

_____________

_Mam, was there ever anyone in our family who, em…_

_Go on, darlin._

_Who might’ve, you know, passed it down? An ancestor?_

This, soon after seeing _Roan Inish._ He finds himself longing desperately for a basis in myth.

Mam’s been busy sticking little red “sign here” flags on piles of tax forms, but she’s willing to indulge her otter-child if it will lessen his anxiety. _Well… there’s never been any talk,_ she muses. _There would be, if there was anything to talk about._

_Inside the family, or out?_

_Both. But especially out. It wouldn’t go unremarked-upon. They’d want us to explain ourselves._

_And what if you couldn’t?_ Tension draws Aidan’s brows together like a blackbird’s wings. _Would you be put in prison, or burnt at the stake?_

Mam’s laughter conceals her dismay. What on earth is _in_ these books his friend lends him? _Oh, now don’t go thinking things like that,_ she scoffs. _The worst you’d have happen nowadays is the Neighborhood Watch coming round to warn you off of the Lonergans’ fancy fish pond—_

_Serious, Mam, I just want to know if I’m the only one of us that’s ever been._

It hurts to see eyes so ancient set in a face so young and scared.

 _Darlin, you are yourself here and now,_ she comforts him. _It doesn’t matter a bit to me who came before you. If you want someone to blame it on, look to your father’s side. His are all country folk; mine are city top to bottom. Did you ever hear of an otter living in a city?_

 _I do,_ he reminds her.

_____________

Age fifteen. He’s moved to a new school, where all that was awkward in him somehow has turned to gold.

He’s taller, less gangly; he’s got shoulders now, and grace. He doesn’t just flail around on a dance floor; all those _pasodoble_ lessons finally reap rewards. His voice has relocated from the flute section to the cellos. His great dark mysterious eyes stir the popular imagination. Without him realizing it, beauty’s entered his picture.

Girls, though: what do they _want?_ They seem just as perplexed at him as he at them. There are clumsy fumblings and awkward phone conversations; stops and starts that confuse all and satisfy none. Mam sends him in to Da for a pep talk, which goes about as you’d expect. Then the task is pawned off on Colin, who doesn’t see the problem.

 _You’re a kid, for the love of Pete,_ he scoffs. _Just let loose and enjoy yourself._

That advice lasts years.

_____________

Junior Cert; Leaving Cert. Inventory, please.

 _Heart:_ a sound, strong engine, easily given away and admirably hard to break.

 _Nature:_ loving, generous, spontaneous: sensitive but not overly so; as likely to stifle emotion as laughter, which is almost never.

 _Brain:_ whipcrack quick, if not always focused on the target; bent toward play as a plant bends towards the sun.

 _Body:_ a temporary shelter which he can abandon whenever the opportunity arises. But he’s befriended this vessel; he trusts and cares for it, and it rewards him with safe haven.

 _Company:_ sought-after. No flaw in in his “community-building skills”, as his year-head Ms. Doheny-Clarke called _making friends._ He’s got plenty of those and more every day.

 _Plans:_ none at all, thanks for asking.

_____________

Outlook for the summer? _I don’t know._ How about the long-term? _I don’t know._ Come now; what would he like to do with himself? _Snooker with the lads, I guess._ How about a job? _If you say so._

He works with Da, if you call standing around with your thumb up your arse work. Da appends every practical demonstration with the words _You’ve just got to FINESSE it_ but whenever Aidan lays hand on a tool it’s promptly snatched away from him again. _Better to be safe,_ etc. A vast improvement is the cinema gig, which gives him the look of a responsible adult, albeit one clad in an acetate sweater vest in shocking company colors.

Despite all this, he still feels like he's barreling down a raging river, unable to cut across to either shore. What does he want to do with his life? What does he want to do? _I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know._

Until he walks past the Gaeity, and history starts being written.

_____________

Glamoury is playacting. It’s also self-preservation. The more forms the Folk take, the harder they are to capture.

_Corporal Stoddard. Hercules. Ardan. Demetrius. Dr. Sugar. Pan. Christian. Bedoli. Paris. Teodoro. Ruairí. Dante Gabriel. Mal._

He finds he _is_ a shapeshifter.

_____________

Scenery is light on paint on canvas on wood. Fights are choreographed dances. Makeup’s a mask; costumes are disguises. Laughter and tears are ritual; so is sex— slow-burning, toe-curling, earth-shattering, transformative. The audience need never know about the glue and latex, the muscle cramps and mortification, the long hours and Chinese takeout half-eaten in haste. They need never see the naked electric bulb in the dressing room, or the shadows cast by the ghost light.

They say drama is a process. But it’s also a result.

He delivers.

_____________

Sometimes acting’s a matter of realistically conveying the emotions of a given moment, whether you feel them or not. Your _character_ does, and that’s what matters.

Sometimes it’s feeling your own emotions while you wear your character’s skin, so to speak. You reach deep and pull them out of you, roots and all. It’s up to you to replant them afterward.

Sometimes it’s an act of creation; other times of destruction— or deconstruction. Words are music in your mouth; human experience is clay in your hands.

Sometimes it’s off-with-your-kit-and-vault-into-bed in front of two dozen people wearing headsets. The poses, the faces, the _noises_ you have to make! You nearly cry from trying so desperately not to laugh.

Sometimes acting is hard and satisfying labor.

Sometimes acting is pure and unalloyed _craic_.

What does he want to do with his life?  
_  
This. This. This._

_____________

He moves out of his parents’ house – Mam pretending her mascara’s not streaking down her cheeks – and into a broom closet in Artane. He sleeps on two yoga mats and bathes in a shared sink that only runs cold. From there he graduates to ever-larger broom closets until finally he’s got his own bedsit. You can’t use the hotplate while the mini-washer-dryer’s running or you’ll blow a fuse. But there’s a window and a futon couch that turns into a bed. When he brings a girl home, he’s proud to be able to offer her a comfortable seat before he offers her himself.

As a lover, he’s the closest to his true self he can get while in this body. He’s tender, exuberant, generous; he takes and gives and strives to leave as little melancholy in his wake as he can. Because he _will_ leave, mentally if not physically. He means no harm, but he cannot help his nature. _Flow_ is the name of the otter’s game.

An age-old curse torments the Folk: to be wanted, yet never quite understand why. We call them cruel and heartless for luring us with their light, but they are as they are, and we've only ourselves to blame for hoping they'll change.

There's no point in staying angry. His disappointed lovers forgive him, and he is absurdly grateful. He promises with all his heart they'll still talk, laugh, go for coffee. Relief – shameful in its shamelessness – stains him through and through.

After every parting, he goes to the river alone. _It’s you I love,_ he whispers, caressing the water with his fingers.

She, too, forgives him.

_____________

Russell figures it out without even knowing.

 _Been out?_ he drawls, swinging side to side in the makeup chair. _Late night?_

Aidan only groans; he’s having Mitchell fangs put in and the cement takes a dog’s age to set. He suspects Russell waited for this very moment on purpose.

_Saw the news. They had footage of you attempting to raid a houseboat. Class move, mate._

Another groan. It’s clear what Russell’s referring to: there's otters in Bristol. Once classed as endangered due to overhunting, they’ve come back in a big way— scampering around the docks, chasing schools of fish in the neighboring lakes. And yes, wreaking havoc aboard houseboats.

 _You’d fit right in,_ Russell tells him. _Only look at you. Long and thin and bendy like a noodle—_

Aidan attempts The Glare, but Russell’s seen Mitchell wear it too many times and has developed an immunity.

 _It’s a simile, darling,_ he sighs. _You’re too hairy to be a noodle. No, it’s perfectly clear what you are. Look at your face._ He sketches a wide heart shape with his hands. _Your little pointy ears. Your disgusting buck teeth—_

 _Ah, come on now,_ says Aidan, testing his snarl in the mirror.

 _—and last but not least, your trademark Turner aroma._ Russell gave him a meaningful look. _I’m not saying you smell_ bad. _It’s remarkable, actually, how good you smell for someone who never bathes._

_I bathe._

_There’s this new thing called soap. They sell it in all the shops. You put it on your skin—_

_I_ bathe.

No, he doesn’t. Lately the feeling of water on his skin elicits an almost overwhelming impulse to change, and he mustn’t do that, not so close to work. Thank god the production team prefers Mitchell on the manky side.

 _Let’s see…_ Russell pretends to shovel something invisible and suspiciously thick towards his face. _A base of skin and hair grease. Cigarettes, but nice ones, thank you for that. Hint of botty wipes. And beneath all that, your special smell. Gets all the otters swarming._

Russell’s nearer to the mark than he knows. When Aidan goes night-prowling, he _does_ attract attention. The otters come _so close_ — but as he’s the wrong shape, they bolt when he tries to speak to them. It makes him feel like a botch job, neither this nor that, and has been sorely tempted to strip down and _change_ so that they’ll fucking _TALK_ to him…

 _No,_ he firmly scolds himself. _They used to shoot otters here, remember._ So instead he talks to Russell, who is almost the same amount of fun.

 _You should accidentally on purpose lose your clothes the next time you go boat-diving,_ says his friend, innocent as a choirboy. _With your fur, you’ve got total camouflage. The cops’ll never catch on._

_____________

At the end of filming, he tries one more time.

Sitting cross-legged on the dock, he keeps very still. The slap of water against pilings is all he hears at first. Then comes a splash, a rustle, a growl: _Persistent, ain’t yer._

 _You know it,_ Aidan growls right back. _And you know why._

 _Aye._ Briskly now: _A’right, son. Le’ us lookit yer._

He shifts around to face no fewer than eight paired points of eyeshine, some bobbing in the water, the rest ranged over the dock.

_Y’ could never join us._

Rejection or complaint? Aidan can’t tell. He opts for the latter. _I know. I was on the job._  
  
The largest one lopes forward until it’s within arm’s length and peers at him critically.

 _Pity,_ it remarks. _Y’ look quite the swimmer._

_____________

One of his takeaways from _Mortal Instruments_ (aside from never wanting to do another _Mortal Instruments)_ is that myths are no better understood now than five hundred years ago.

Back then, the Fair Folk were downright bastards, whisking hapless humans below for an hour’s bliss and then expelling them back into the topside world, where fifty years had passed. Now the Folk have turned into badge-carrying Good Guys, delivering us from evil or some shite. Battling the forces of darkness? They used to _BE_ the forces of darkness! Now they’re more like civil servants with steady jobs and retirement plans.

God knows, if being a mythical creature guaranteed you a pension, Aidan would jump right on it. But he’s not here to rescue anyone. He’s never met a single other creature like himself, let alone a whole underground network. He often finds himself wishing there was one, even one as ridiculous as in _Mortal Instruments._ He sorely misses those who _know:_ his family, Niall, his Glendalough friends. He wishes he could add just one more to their number. A special friend, hand-chosen.

In his rare low moments he thinks he would tell his special friend that being a _dobharchú_ doesn’t come with any noble mission. He’d tell them that a power is nothing more than an ability unsuited for everyday life; that there’s no mystical unseen realm shimmering beyond our own. There’s just this humdrum world full of taxes and laundry and washing-up.

That's only the human talking, though. Then his joyful loving otter nature reasserts itself, and he thinks he would tell them, _Ah, it’s deadly, you should try it yourself._

 

  
**II. THE WAITOREKE**

Courage is fuel, and fuel gets you places. Around the world, then, from one pair of islands to another. It couldn't be that hard, could it?

Up to this moment, it's been a playground smack dab in the middle of fucking heaven. Bliss every day, until six words knock it all to rubble.

_You’re so full of shit, Turner._

He shakes the declaration off with a loud _HA!_ as if it's the best burn he’s heard all year. Instead of joining in, the speaker flings him a glance of contempt, and he realizes with icy clarity that it wasn't meant as a joke.

_You’re so full of shit, Turner._

People tease him just to hear him laugh, but one person hates the sound and prefers him silent. After a dozen or so shut-downs and cut-offs, he begins to think twice before opening his mouth.

_You’re so full of shit, Turner._

Without realizing it, he's tuned in to the criticism as if it's a particularly powerful radio station dominating the airwaves. It robs him of all his power, even of The Glare. Now, when he looks in the mirror, he sees what his shadow sees: a bum-suck, a show-off, a tall poppy begging to be cut down.

_You’re so full of shit, Turner._

One morning, he catches Jed and Graham surveilling him sharply from across the drill hall. Shame rears up almost immediately. His scuffed trainer tops seem the only safe thing to look at. Next minute, a comradely arm settles round his shoulders. He looks up into Graham’s kind eyes and finds in them a vote of confidence, the first of many to be cast in his favor.

When _deus ex_ Jackson descends from on high, everything happens fast. Closed-door meetings lead to the forceful throwing of luggage into the boot of a hired car. No goodbyes; how could there be? _Unnecessary conversations are to no one’s benefit._ So sayeth Peter the Great.

_____________

_That other one's...?_

_Yeah, Mam._

_Well, thank God for that._

_____________

Peter has deputized Mark – the most avuncular of the Kiwi posse – to take Aidan out, show him some fun, lift him out of the stew of trouble that's choked his breath for weeks. The older man is only too happy to pitch in.

 _Where’d you like to go?_ he asks. _Anything special you’d like to do, sights you'd like to see?_

Quick-smart: _Do you have otters here?_

_Otters?!_

_It’s— we have them at home, and I really, I just—_

So it unfolds, and here's our man now, waiting to meet Jakarta, the Wellington Zoo’s star Asian small-clawed otter.

 _You’ll get to feed our girl, and she enjoys a nice ear-scratch,_ the zookeeper brightly informs him. Her name’s Penny; she’s tiny, plump, red-curled, even a little hobbitlike. Aidan’s bruised sense of magic begins to revive.

In comes Jakarta in the arms of a handler. The instant she sees Aidan, the otter begins to struggle and twist. _Let me down, let me down, let me down!_ she demands until her handler (who cannot understand otter-speech, but comprehends claws well enough) relents.

 _Oooh, she’s never like this,_ exclaims Penny.

Ignoring the zookeeper’s reproachful tone, Jakarta leaps – _LEAPS!_ – onto Aidan’s knee. _You’re here, you’re here,_ she exults. _You’re finally FINALLY here._

 _My God,_ cries Mark at this flood of squeaks and chirps. He repeats his oath with an exclamation mark attached as the otter butts her little broad head against Aidan’s chin like a house cat.

When Jakarta pulls back, she seems concerned. _Can’t you talk?_

Aidan tries but can’t; he sniffs and clears his throat.

 _Ah, you’re too happy to talk! I’m happy, too!_ To prove it, Jakarta scampers in a gleeful little circle on the human’s lap. Using her tail for balance, she rears up on her hind legs and places a little paw on each sallow, black-stubbled cheek. _I waited for you!_  
  
This unlocks Aidan’s tongue. _For me?_

 _Would you look at that!_ Mark points out needlessly to Penny, who is already hanging on every chirp. _Wonder if they're this friendly at home!_

 _I waited all night and all morning and all day!_ sings Jakarta, patting and stroking away. _They told me someone special was coming, and here you are! Can’t you change? I want to see the way you look!_

_You know what I am?_

_Of course I do! Did you meet the other one? Here yesterday— if you run, you’ll catch him!_

_Catch who? Another otter?_

_No! The_ waitoreke! _The one who is like you!_

 _The one...?_ Aidan can't finish that particular sentence. Instead he asks Jakarta, _Who is it?_

 _Oooh, BIG fella!_ She balances on her hind legs, stretching her front paws up high in the air to demonstrate how big. Then she falls forward and presses the tip of her nose against Aidan's. _Where are you from? Did you come in a boat? Do you have a family? Tell me, tell me EVERYTHING!_  
  
_____________

For a month, six words have pressed the joy out of him. Now six new words - _the one who is like you_ – have filled him right back up to the brim. All his childhood wonderings spring back to life, their roots fed by new hope. It doesn’t matter that the Alps are an island away, or that most likely he’ll never encounter this Big Fella here, there, or anywhere.

 _I have a kind,_ he thinks. _I have a kind._

_____________

>   
>  _**Waitoreke** _
> 
> _Var. South Island otter, Waitorete_
> 
> _Otter-like cryptid of Australasia, esp. New Zealand’s South Island._
> 
> _Described by eyewitnesses as a mammalian or marsupial animal, 2-4 ft. in length, with a flat cranial shape and brown or white fur, similar to_ Lutra sumatrana. _Occupies areas near rivers or lakes in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, where it has been observed sliding down riverbanks. Purported to subsist on fish and to live in shallow holes or burrows. Presence is indicated by a musky odor and a high-pitched whistling sound._
> 
> _**SEE: Dobharchú** _

_There's one here, Mam._

_One THERE?_

_Yeah. Little otter told me._

_______________

_Someone for you to meet,_ says Peter, and Aidan’s shoulders knot up in a snap. Then Dean walks in, and everything relaxes. It can’t be muscle memory; they’ve never met before. But Aidan questions nothing. He _wants_ a miracle to happen.

He’s little, Dean is. Non-threatening. The blond hair throws Aidan momentarily – eye-corner glimpses of the Fíli wig still make him tense up – but the face is friendly, the voice calm, the posture open and confident. He stands very still as if warned in advance that Aidan might spook.

Which indeed he still might.

Dean extracts his hand from his jeans pocket and holds it out. It’s large-knuckled, meaty, a fighter’s hand. Yet there’s no show of macho dominance in his handshake; he doesn’t just grab and crush. To ease the awkwardness of the moment, he cracks a joke about the miserable weather – in fact it’s blue-skied heaven outside – and for the first time in weeks, Aidan thinks, _Yeah, I’ll manage._

They do a scene together. It feels easy, natural, like they’ve been a team for much longer than ten minutes. There's another handshake— two, actually; easier and friendlier than the first.

 _See you,_ Dean calls behind him on his way out.

 _Maybe,_ Aidan says to himself.

When he watches the audition video afterwards, a curious warmth fills his chest. During one segue he's laughing, and Dean looks over, and something flashes across his face. Recognition; satisfaction. And he starts laughing, too— _with_ Aidan, not _at_ him. Like he’s made up his mind.

Soon enough, Aidan will know the feeling.

_____________

_His name’s Dean. He’s Irish— well, Kiwi-born, but Irish-with-an-O’._

_Playing nice so far?_

_Yeah. Not just on set, but everywhere. We laugh, Mam. A LOT. I feel loads better._

_Ah, I'm glad for you, darlin. Speaking of feeling better, have you found any time for...?_

_Not yet. The schedule's murder. We ARE to be shooting a big river scene, but I doubt I'd pick that as my moment._

_Oh, I certainly wouldn't. Remember, though, it’s like vitamins or sunshine. You can’t go without for too long._

_____________

Mam’s right as always; it mounts in him like a craving with no chance of indulgence.

The Pelorus river shoot is tremendous fun, but it’s also torment. The effort of hiding his desire is as exhausting as the work itself. He’s catapulted back to childhood, when he could barely focus on the world around him just trying to contain everything inside.

That night he lets himself change in the shower. It’s risky – the stall is tiny; there are others waiting – but oh, he wants it so much, so much! The warm water streaming over his pelt feels good in a way no human can ever know. He imagines what would happen if he didn’t change back; if he loped out of the stall, out of the trailer, through the encampment and into the darkness...

He finds himself crouching on the shower floor, naked again in a stranger’s skin.

_____________

Half the people here have already worked with Dean; of these, Mark’s known him the longest. He can tell you about fourteen-year-old Dean in his first TV movie and nineteen-year-old Dean in his first feature film. He can tell you about Deans of all ages in productions you’ve never heard of.

And he can tell Dean about you.

They’re standing under a tarpaulin, drinking awful oil-slick coffee out of foam cups and waiting for a cloudburst to peter out when Dean remarks out of thin air, _You’ve been to the Zoo._

 _Aaaaah, Hadlow you NARC!_ Aidan roars in egged-up outrage. To Dean, eyes twinkling: _Yehhh, it was brilliant—_

_You saw Jakarta._

A statement, not a question. Mistrust, so newly buried, stirs again. _I did._

_Mark says you had a good chat with her._

A strange, unsteady feeling fills the world.

His first impulse is to clamp down, shut off, close up shop, but he finds this hard to do these days. Instead he cloaks himself in a layer of good humor, shiny and brittle. _Oh, yeah, sure we did. We discussed the Mars rover and the European debt crisis and_ Lion King 3D. _We—_

Dean taps Aidan’s shin with the toe of one oversized Fíli-boot. _Hey,_ he says quietly. _Hey._

Exposed and furious, Aidan ducks his head under the tarpaulin’s ragged edge to study the sky. If he strikes out now before it starts pissing again… _Well, go on; what else did Mark tell you about me?_ he says, overloud.

_He told me a bit about how it was before I came._

_Did he._

_Yes. So did Peter. So did Jed._ Once more, Aidan feels Dean’s boot-tip touch him softly, this time on the back of his heel, the vulnerable spot named for Achilles. He turns to meet a gentle look; not a trace of sarcasm in those blue eyes.

 _I would never do that to you,_ says Dean.

And then it’s pouring again which is just as well, for to his surprise, Aidan’s no longer looking to escape.

_____________

It’s hard to explain, the way a stranger becomes a brother. The way he settles every nerve in your body just walking in the room. The way you know he’s next to you without looking, but you look anyway to make sure he’s where he ought to be. The way you can fall asleep next to him anywhere – in the rover, on the copter, in the makeup chair, on a ground tarp between takes – and wake up as excited as a little kid knowing there’s still plenty of the day left to play. The way so much laughter can come out of just _looking at each other_ — and sometimes not even that; a thought speeds from one mind to another, and there’s no need even to compare notes.

The way he makes you forget the water, or at least not need it so much. Or maybe he takes the water’s place; it's hard to explain.

_____________

Categories.

Those who have known from the start: Mam, Da, Colin.

Those who were not supposed to know but learned by happy accident: Niall.

Those who know because he went looking for them: his friends at Bristol and Glendalough.

Those he was afraid to tell: pretty much everyone.

The one he wants to tell despite being afraid: Dean.

_____________

 _Lutra lutra_ being a species of lightning-fast reflexes and very little impulse control, he commits quickly. Sure, this show-and-tell may well end with screams of terror. But the _dobharchú_ is undeterred by logic; he blithely wriggles through all counter-arguments as if they were riverbottom weeds.

Dean’s his mate, his brother, the Kíli to his Fíli— sorry, the _Fíli_ to his _Kíli_. Dean is _Deano-with-an-o._ He'd never hurt a friend, regardless of what that friend is under the skin. And anyway, Aidan wouldn’t be turning into _something else._ He’d be turning back into _himself_ — and he trusts absolutely that Deano will know him when he sees him.

That’s otters for you. Not exactly the critical thinkers of the animal kingdom.

The _WHEN, WHERE,_ and _HOW_ of his plan remain nebulous; even more so the _WHAT THEN?_ He dreams and schemes, feeling Very Busy and Onto Something but making no measurable progress.

He doesn’t know it, but the time he buys himself through dreaming buys time for Dean as well.

It’s the thought that counts.

_____________

_Do you hike?_

He can’t turn his head; Susan’s painting the horrid blue veins of orc-sickness onto his face. _Do I what?_

_Hike._

_I can_ walk, _certainly._

 _Good enough._ Pause. _Can you swim?_

Aidan bites the inside of his lip to keep from snickering and is promptly told by Susan to stop. She has established rules expressly for him: no laughing, smiling, talking, fidgeting, foot-jiggling, head-bopping and chewing while in the chair. Dean, conversely, is Zen monk-like in his stillness and therefore the preferred Durin. But Aidan can sense without seeing that for once it’s Dean who's restless.

 _I can swim,_ he side-mouths, darting his eyes at Susan.

Silence for a time while Cody applies Fíli’s mustache. Aidan dozes in his chair, lulled by the feathery strokes of Susan's brush. Then, sinking in through the cotton-wool, Dean's voice again: _This weekend I’m driving to Tongariro._

 _Ooh, Tongariro's nice,_ Susan trills. _It's got a beautiful lake._

 _Several,_ says Dean.

_____________

This is it. This is really it. The _chance, opportunity, opening, beginning, end._ What do you pack for such occasion?

 _Overnight, go light,_ Dean says— which is perfect, given the possibility that Aidan might find himself walking home. So then: a spare change of clothes, plus two extra pairs of socks. A warm flannel shirt and a rainproof jacket. Hiking boots. Toothbrush and toothpaste. Bug spray and hand sanitizer. An LED flashlight small enough to wear on a wrist strap. Sunglasses. A deck of cards. A hope and a prayer.

Dean will bring the rest. Aidan hopes that includes a bottle of wine.

 _Two_ bottles.

_____________

Up at five; leave by six. Four hours plus change on the road. Pull in at the holiday park, set up camp (fancy word for a patch of dirt just large enough for a two-man dome tent) and head straightaway to Rotopounamu.

 _It means Greenstone Lake,_ explains Dean. _About a twenty-minute drive from camp._

_I thought we were hiking._

_That’d take hours, Aid._

Plenty of time for a person to think twice about what they’re planning to do when they reach the water’s edge.

_____________

_Look._

He’s been drowsing in the passenger seat since the car began to move. Called back by a light touch on his wrist, he opens his eyes to a world of grey and blue.

_Look._

They’ve reached a short stretch of highway that overlooks the Pacific. Black rocks and white-capped surf below; slate mackerel sky above. To the northwest, a dark mysterious mass breaches the ocean’s surface like the spine of Leviathan.

 _Kapiti Island,_ Dean says. _Whales calve their babies in the sea all around it._

Aidan watches it out of sight, then dives back down below.

_____________

_Good morning again._

They’re no longer moving; the breeze from the open car window has ceased, its salt exchanged for sweet. The light’s different, too, ambery and gentle.

Aidan yawns and scrubs at his eyes. _We there already?_

 _No, we’re, um… we’re in Whanganui, on the coast. It’s a bit of a detour, but I thought…_ Dean slides the keys out of the ignition and jingles them in his fingers. _There’s art here you might like to see. We can get breakfast to go and be back on the road in an hour. Unless you’d rather—_

 _No! No, it sounds great, man._ Aidan shifts around, readying himself for a mighty stretch. This accomplished, he collapses against the backrest with a groan. _Let’s take our time. Least I can do for leaving you with no one to talk to all this way._

 _Actually, we had a whole conversation._ Dean watches Aidan sidelong. _You slept through it._

Apprehension pools in Aidan’s gut. _What did we talk about?_

 _Swans. You told me they wouldn’t bite if we stuck to our side of the pond. Your instructions were very specific._ Dean undoes his seatbelt; it retracts with a long squeal of grievance that makes both men laugh. Then: _They’ve got them here, you know. Swans. Go have a look?_

_Sure._

Priorities first: coffee and pies, which they attempt to eat walking. It’s pure slapstick; they cannot stop laughing. Down at the riverfront there’s a huge, sparkling-smooth metal sphere in which they see themselves reflected side by side. And there are swans— some white, some black, all of them hissing like rattlesnakes. Aidan realizes how merciful the Clondalkin flock was towards him. There are no deals to be struck with this lot, not that he’d ever put a toe in their water anyway. Like a bashful virgin, he’s saving himself for Rotopounamu.

They do the town; it takes much more than an hour, but it’s a fucking gas. They’ve halfway climbed a spirally earth-sculpture before Aidan notices that Dean has no camera on him. _Did you forget it?_ he asks.

Dean shrugs and says _No worries,_ which doesn’t quite answer the question.

More coffee and then back in the SUV, laughing like a pair of grade-A eejits. It’s ten-thirty-two on a mellow February morning. _Two more hours to the holiday park,_ Dean announces. _But who’s hurrying?_

Glancing at the speedometer, Aidan thinks, _You are._

_____________

Get there. Load out, eyeing the back seat to see if he’ll fit in case Dean won’t let him in the tent. Pitch the tent, eyeing the terrain to see where he’ll shelter in case Dean locks him out of the SUV. Walk down the track, memorizing it in case Dean flees in terror, leaving him to fend for himself. Get to the lake and take it all in, since that’s where he’ll be living if everything goes tits up. He can never go back; he knows that. He’ll be the _waitoreke_ in residence, then; a fabled species of one.

_____________

_Is this for the evening campfire?_

Aidan's found the wine tote.

Dean looks up from the ground tarp he’s spreading out over their assigned patch of God’s brown earth. _No fires allowed in the park. Are you disappointed?_

_No. Don't need a fire to get lit._

_____________

Lake Rotopounamu marching orders: _Just start walking and loop around. You’ll end where you began._

Sure. Assuming there’s a way back from this.

_____________

The first part’s all forest and noisy with birdsong, which is good because he and Dean are each sunken in their own thoughts. There’s a climb (thank God Dean insisted on a runner’s warm-up) and then through a break in the trees Aidan sees _the water_ — jade green, mouthwatering, irresistible.

 _Does anything live in there?_ he asks carefully.

 _Little fish,_ Dean tells him, holding up his fingers about fifteen centimeters apart.

_Are there lots?_

_I wouldn’t think so. It’s a crater lake, sort of like a puddle. There’s nowhere for them to go, and no new ones that can come in. Most likely the population stays level. If there were any predators, it’d be a different story._

Brilliant. No living off the lake, then. He’ll be reduced to a life of nicking granola bars off tourists.

_____________

They stop briefly at one beach, then another, pausing at each only long enough to stare.

 _Aren’t we swimming?_ asks Aidan. The sight of all that gorgeous emerald water has whet his desire to be surrounded by it. But Dean – gazing out over the same water with seemingly less enthusiasm – shakes his head.

_Not yet. There’s a better place further on._

_But I thought—_

_We’ll get there, Aid._  
_____________

The silence between them widens, deepens— but they don’t really need to speak, do they? It’d mar the mood.

Aidan is peaceful now that he's realized he can never show Dean. Oh, did you miss that? It just happened, and his mind's already made up, so don't try to persuade him otherwise. It's for the best. Nothing in his life will have to change. All he has to do is give up one fool notion, and he can get back to what's true and solid— the reality he has painstakingly whittled into a life. Show Dean nothing and keep his friendship. Hide to remain free. Resist raw nature. He's been doing it for years—

_KHAAAAAAAAAA!_

Out of the trees comes an explosion of wings, passing so close he can feel their breeze. His foot slides a bit across a sludge of wet leaves and mud. _What the_ FUCK—?!

Dean grabs his elbow, first to right him, then to keep from slipping himself. _Steady on, just a bush parrot!_

 _A parrot?! It sounds like a fucking_ velociraptor!

From the thicket, taunting: _KHAAAAAA!_

_Oh, Christ—_

They’re hanging on to each other, crimson-faced and breathless with laughter. On an impulse Aidan hooks an arm around Dean’s neck and kisses his forehead, a big, fond, fervent smack of a kiss. But as he makes to pull away, Dean twists around to face him.

It could be a _hongi_ , hand on a shoulder and a press of nose and brow: simple. But this is not simple. This is Dean rubbing his cheek against Aidan’s jaw and rolling his head under Aidan’s chin in a gesture at once familiar and startling, and suddenly Aidan knows. _Knows_.

Dean’s eyelids remain closed an extra second or two after he pulls away. Then they flicker open, and he takes stumbling step backward. He looks confused, but Aidan's not. All the anxiety that has been vibrating in his bones since they started down the footpath vanishes. All denial flies out the window. He's so happy he could cry, hug himself, burst into song.

 _We should keep on,_ Dean tells the mud and leaves beneath his own feet.

_____________

Near the end of the loop, they come to a dead stop on the trail. Dean peers all around to make sure they’re alone, then steers Aidan down and down through dense forest to what you’d barely call a beach. Its only apparent advantage is secrecy. Green rainforest shields them from eyes above; a shelf of foliage overhanging the water conceals them from trail walkers on the opposite shore. Only a few steps to the water; they could slip right in unnoticed.

Aidan's bouncing on his toes. _It’s happening,_ he exults. _And I didn’t have to do a thing._

Dean shrugs off his backpack and lets it dangle from one hand. He’s trying to act casual and failing so thoroughly at it that Aidan longs to kiss him again. But confessional moments are awkward enough on their own. He should know.

 _Thanks for coming with me today,_ Dean’s saying now. He keeps his voice low so it won’t carry across the water, but it adds to the strange new intimacy being conjured between them.

 _No, thank_ you, _mate. It’s beautiful here._

 _Yes. I thought it would be a good place. A private place to talk._ In a whisper: _You know what about._

Aidan does. Of _course_ he does. He makes his next words teasing so that Dean understands there’s no danger; if he wavers and falls, he’ll be safely caught. _Jakarta lied. She said you were a BIG Fella._

Dean's silent for half a dozen heartbeats. Then he snorts. _To Jakarta, everyone’s big._

 _Yeah, but if I hadn’t been looking for a_ tall _person, I’d have known it was you much sooner._

People talking high above on the path. The two men fall silent, peering upward through the canopy until the voices pass.

 _I thought the_ waitoreke _only lived on the South Island,_ whispers Aidan.

 _I'm not a_ waitoreke. _I'm... I don't know what I am._

 _I do._ Aidan feels warmed through and through, as though standing in full sun. _And I’d have told you I was too, but maybe you'd already guessed. Did you?_

 _Yes, when Mark told me. At first I was scared to be right. And then so much more scared to be wrong._ A pause; Dean looks full into Aidan’s eyes. _When did_ you _guess?_

 _Back there, just now._ Smiling, Aidan draws the backs of his fingers over his cheek. _Only one of our kind would do that._

The Folk cannot cry in front of anyone but their own kind, so tears come as both relief and proof.

_I don't know how to start._

_I'll go first, if that makes it easier._

_I want to see it happen, Aid._

_And I want to SHOW you._

Aidan's never undressed so deliberately, even in front of a lover. There are no qualms in shedding all these skins, stripping himself bare of fear. They both know where this is heading.

He does as he's always done— lays himself down and just _arches_ into it, head to toe. He hears Dean gasp, and it gives him a curious satisfaction. He rolls over, preens his fur a bit, looks up at his friend expectantly: _Your turn._

Dean’s method suits his straightforward nature. Once bare, he simply drops to his hands and knees, and the change ripples over him. In otter form, he's as different from Aidan as in human form: gold-colored, short in body but muscular through shoulder and haunch. _Powerful,_ Aidan thinks. _Beautiful._

Humanity has its own strict set of manners, but it's not as two people that they come together now. They're otters: decorum be damned. They clutch each other tight, nuzzling each other’s faces and shoulders. What seemed out-of-place on the footpath now reads perfectly clear.

After a few minutes – because otters are insatiable for mischief – caresses turn to play-fighting. Their tails sweep half-circles in the fallen leaves as they tumble and roll about.

 _Deano!_ Aidan cries, wriggling loose. _Deano! Chase me!_ And off he tears through the low brush.

Up and down and all over the lakeshore, they dart and tack and ambush each other, squealing in glee. It could go on forever, except Dean scrambles atop a fallen tree limb, gathers himself and springs. Catching hold of Aidan’s back haunches, he rolls over and over with him. But Aidan lands on top, which gives him the advantage. He makes full use of it.

 _Stop! Ahhh— stop!_ Dean squeaks. _It’s wet! And COLD!_

Aidan extracts his nose from Dean’s ear and flings himself backwards. _Dean, the WATER! Come on!_

To be careful, they enter the lake undercover, sliding through a bank of sedge on their bellies. Once they’re in, though, all caution disappears. The water’s warm, light-dappled, pure; they slip through it in effortless bliss, swirling helixes around each other.

At first they stay as close to shore as possible, but the depths call. There, teeming masses of silvery fish part like clouds at their approach, and Aidan executes a joyful spiral. _I’m hungry!_ he declares.

 _It’s been a long time since breakfast,_ agrees Dean.

Their catch is plentiful and delicious, though a bit exotic for Aidan. _Are these supposed to smell like cucumber?_ he asks about the smelts he’s polishing off.

 _When they’re raw,_ Dean chuckles through his own mouthful.

They’ve eaten side by side a million times, mostly ready-made craft services sandwiches or styrofoam plates of Sterno-heated daily specials. None of these meals satisfied them like this one. Between the two of them, they deal Rotopounamu’s fish population a marked hit.

 _Full,_ Dean groans. _Need a sleep._

In a hidden lilaeopsis patch a few yards from their heaped-up clothes and shielded by taller rushes, they carefully spruce themselves up for sleep. Dean’s a little clumsy at it – he had no other otters to teach him – but Aidan shows him how, and soon enough they’re happily grooming each other’s fur.

_Feels good?_

_SO good!_

They pretzel their bodies together in a cozy knot, ideal for sleeping in the sultry late afternoon. Dean tucks his head under Aidan’s chin; they hold each other close as can be. Aidan believes he feels complete for the first time; maybe before he only thought he had, but now he’s sure. _Do you feel happy?_ he whispers to Dean as a way of confessing his own joy.

 _Very,_ Dean answers, pressing closer.

_____________

_KHAAAAAAAAAA!_

Dean’s already up on his haunches, whiskers quivering. Tense, they listen, letting their hackles down only when the parrot’s second cry comes from further away.

The sun’s low now; the day’s gone blue and chilly. _One last dip?_ comes the inevitable plea. But Dean shakes his sleek head with regret. _Best to get on the road before the light’s lost,_ he tells Aidan. Then: _Checkout’s by ten tomorrow, though. Plenty of time before we have to be back in good old Wellywood. We'll have other chances, Aid._

Aidan frisks from paw to paw.

But melancholy steals in as he rises up from the change. He likes both of his bodies, human no more or less than otter, so it’s not that. But having to pull clothes back on, retreat once more behind the disguise, walk away from the water and back to the car…

Echoes of Glendalough.

Dean’s crouched down, knotting a bootlace without looking at his hands. He’s watching Aidan instead. He radiates understanding, and Aidan manages a smile. No. More than _manages_. It’s a leap into empty space, but when you’ve changed your skin in front of someone, saying the words hardly seems overdramatic: _I love you, brother._  
  
The sun might well have never set, Dean’s upturned eyes shine so bright.

_____________

With the passage of time, Aidan's otter nature will become more pronounced, as if to compensate for having to be human full-time. He gets restless. He roves. Whenever they're shooting in Bodmin Moor, he'll slip away to the otter preserve in North Petherwin, but as _Poldark_ takes off it becomes harder to go unrecognized. He'll visit in the off-season instead, fully bearded for camouflage. The otters don't mind; they always recognize him. As far as they're concerned, the more fur on him, the better.

He'll keep making friends and fighting to hold on to them, but he's swimming hard against an inborn current. It's not that he forgets those he loves. He just sort of... _misplaces_ them temporarily. Not to worry; he'll always find them again and be forgiven.

Dean forgives most, because Dean understands best.

In years to come, their weekend at Rotopounamu will become a North Star that pins a chaotic existence in place. They'll bat sporadic emails back and forth; occasionally they'll talk on the phone— no small effort, given the time difference. One'll tell the other, _God, I could use a swim,_ or _If you were here, I'd take you out for sushi._ That's their code. It's all they've got.

That night in the tent, though, they're happy— so happy, they don't even open the wine. In the morning when they plunge back into the lake, and all afternoon as they pass the miles with stories of their lives before each other, that emotion remains impervious to all future fears. And back in Wellington, late at night, Aidan does what he's been dying to all day: he picks up the phone.

_Mam. You'll never guess._

**Author's Note:**

> This is 100% fiction, inspired by Mr. Turner's general otterishness. _Dobharchú_ and _waitoreke_ appear in the respective mythologies of Ireland and Aotearoa. I've opted to portray them as similar to selkies, able to change from human to animal and back again. The story title is derived from Van Morrison's superlative "Stoned Me". Information source list available upon request, and includes an abstract about aquatic plants in Lake Rotopounamu. Jakarta is based loosely on Jak'ura, a hand-reared river otter at Wellington Zoo who was alive during the time of HOBBIT filming. Any mean language comes from the mouths of mean characters on purpose. I do not pretend to know the circumstances that led to Deano joining the cast; the situation portrayed is 100% fictional narrative and does not serve as a guess or accusation. 
> 
> This story is dedicated to my friends on Tumblr, with whom much fun was shared over the Aidan!otter If ever there WAS a _dobharchú,_ I'd want it to be him. Or at least for him to play one on TV.


End file.
